July 16, 2025
An Analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Effect on Student Loans
Key Points Introduction At the beginning of July, President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), a comprehensive package of reforms to taxes and government spending.1 While the package touches on myriad policy areas, it includes a comprehensive set of reforms to the federal student loan program. These represent some of…
June 26, 2025
Does Building Light-Touch Density Housing Lower Single-Family Home Values? Evidence from Seattle, WA and Charlotte, NC
Summary: Opponents of Light-touch Density (LTD) infill argue that it will lead to outright home price declines or, at the very least, slower home price appreciation (HPA). However, evidence from Charlotte and Seattle shows that the construction of LTD housing—such as duplexes and townhomes—does not adversely impact HPA of single-family detached (SFD) homes in the…
June 25, 2025
De-Skilling the Knowledge Economy
Key Points Introduction As David Veldran and I examined in our 2024 report, The Age of Uncertainty—and Opportunity: Work in the Age of AI, forecasts of how artificial intelligence will affect jobs and skills are remarkably uneven and often contradictory.1 This is less a matter of poor methodologies or lack of investigation than it is…
June 24, 2025
Public Housing and Rental Subsidies
Since the 1930s, the federal government has subsidized local housing projects aimed at uplifting the poor. The specific policies have evolved, but the theory has been that federal aid is needed because the states cannot solve their own housing problems and private markets fail to invest in affordable housing. Federal housing efforts are led by…
June 18, 2025
The (Non) Effect of Tariffs on Manufacturing Employment
This paper is a chapter in the volume The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment, published by The Center for Economic and Policy Research. Introduction President Trump has stated many goals to justify his trade war. He has argued that tariffs on imports produce leverage that the US can use to reduce…
June 16, 2025
Accountable for Outcomes: We Need Evidence-Based Funding Models
Key Points Introduction Amid escalating college costs, mounting student debt, and rising college graduate underemployment, students of all backgrounds increasingly question college as a path to economic mobility. This shift has sparked interest in alternatives to college—from high school career and technical education (CTE) programs to short-term adult training courses proposed for Pell Grant funding…
June 13, 2025
Good Fathers, Flourishing Kids: The Importance of Fatherhood in Virginia
Children in Virginia are more likely to flourish when their fathers are engaged and/or present. This is one of the conclusions from Good Fathers, Flourishing Kids: The Importance of Fatherhood in Virginia, a new report from an intellectually diverse group of scholars at the University of Virginia, the American Enterprise Institute, the American Institute for Boys and Men,…
June 12, 2025
Lingering Absence in Public Schools: Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2024
Key Points Introduction It has been over five years since the US shut down for COVID, and in many ways, the country has moved past the pandemic. For US schools, however, the pandemic’s toll has not passed so quickly. Student academic achievement remains depressed, and chronic absenteeism continues to hover substantially above the pre-pandemic baseline….
June 10, 2025
America’s Housing Supply Problem: The Closing of the Suburban Frontier?
Housing prices across much of America have hit historic highs, while less housing is being built. If the U.S. housing stock had expanded at the same rate from 2000-2020 as it did from 1980-2000, there would be 15 million more housing units. This paper analyzes the decline of America’s new housing supply, focusing on large…
May 22, 2025
Course Correction: Rebuilding The Federal Student Loan System After Biden’s Mismanagement
Key Points Introduction Thirty-five million federal student loan borrowers went back into repayment in October 2024 after the government had suspended their student loan payments, in effect, for four and a half years. Already, delinquencies have shot up, and a wave of loan defaults looms. Borrowers will feel the pain—but so will the federal budget…